


atom to atom

by CuddleFuddle



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Character Study, Consensual Desert Bluffs, Desert Bluffs, M/M, brief mention of self injury scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuddleFuddle/pseuds/CuddleFuddle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five snapshots of moments in Kevin and Kostya's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	atom to atom

**Author's Note:**

> So this pretty much just started as a writing exercise that quickly ballooned into something much more ridiculous. I wasn't sure whether or not to include the last bit (and I might remove it later, idk), and there are probably parts that are disjointed but if I re-read this one more time my head might explode. So here you go. Enjoy?
> 
> Kostya's name comes from [these lovely people](http://creepy-cuttingedge-and-cecilos.tumblr.com). It was the first DB!Carlos name I encountered, and I fell in love _instantly_.

The storm creeps in unannounced, a slink of grey across the sky until, with a yowl that sounds alarmingly catlike to Kostya's ears, the whole thing bursts open like an overripe fruit. The rain smells slightly of – _something_ , something that lingers on the tip of his palate, changing just as he remembers what it was.

It's not important. What is important is Kevin, lounging on Kostya's balcony, dark eyes wide with the sight of it, rain slipping down the roof to gather in puddles by his feet.

"Hey," Kostya says, setting down the cup of tea he'd been making. Kevin curls his fingertips around the edges of the handle and hums in the back of his throat. He's entranced by the slide of raindrops forming patterns on the balcony fence and honestly, Kostya is too. They're beautiful - beautiful in a way that rain shouldn't be, shimmering and shining with the light of a sun that ought to be hidden by clouds.

(Is, in fact, hidden by clouds; Kostya peeks out from under the roof to check and the sky is a bar of steel.)

"Thank you," Kevin's voice is bright and Kostya isn't sure why at first, until he he realizes that Kevin has taken a sip of the tea. It's Kevin's favourite - Strex-brand chamomile and comes in a light blue powder that Kostya steeps like tea leaves. No one has bothered to explain to him what, exactly, tea is made of here in Desert Bluffs, and Kostya keeps forgetting to take a sample and test it.

"You always remember how I like it," Kevin continues and Kostya bites back something derisive. Kevin takes his tea with a dash of cream and nothing more.

"It's easy," Kostya says instead, because that sentence can project a multitude of meanings and sure enough, Kevin beams when he settles on the one he likes best. "Mind if I sit?" 

"Of course not."

Silence settles over them like a fog; Kevin sipping his cloud blue tea, Kostya watching the rain slither into constellations. Kevin's hands around the mug are trembling softly; Kostya stares at the part where brown skin meets yellow porcelain, the edge where states of matter collude and wonders about the taste of Kevin's fingertips.

"Is the rain always like this?"

He means to add "here in the desert" because subtle reminders of his outsider status always serve to soften the blow of his oddness for Kevin, but this time he just shrugs and sets the mug on the table.

"Occasionally. Sun showers, you know?"

It's not a sun shower. Kostya has seen sun showers. The rain falling from the sky looks almost like smears of paint, an oil-and-brush attempt to capture the angle of light from a source, except there is no source. The sky is swollen with clouds and the air is sticky wet and the rain is falling in threads of clear light, catching on Kostya's railing and dangling like cobwebs.

"It's very pretty," Kostya settles on, finally, lamely, and Kevin settles his head on Kostya's shoulder.

"I've always wanted to watch a sun shower with someone," he says shyly, hand on Kostya's thigh. "It's very romantic."

He can imagine it, Kevin as a younger man, trying to map out the shapes he wants a relationship to take. It's not something Kostya has much experience with; the only maps he'd ever drawn were of a normal life where he was in love with the mediocrity of everything. He'd abandoned all hopes of a relationship long before Desert Bluffs. This, this moment here with Kevin in the shelter of a balcony overhang with rain dripping heavy and thick like syrup - he'd never expected anything like this, certainly had never allotted any time to the consideration of it. It's something almost magical, loathe as Kostya is to use the term, loathe as he is to classify his relationship in terms of the unreal.

He wraps his free arm around Kevin's shoulder heedless of the chair arms between them, and Kevin sighs with a soft exhale that the rain absorbs instantly.

"You don't have science to do?" Kevin asks finally, awkwardly, against Kostya's shoulder.

Yes, Kostya thinks, I do, because a year ago he would've given just about anything to run tests on this rain and that's an itch that will never really subside.

"Nothing that can't wait," he says instead, another sentence of multitudes and beside him Kevin exhales happiness.

*

It’s a learning process, the way their bodies fit together, Kevin pressed against him, sweaty and firm. He’s not a virgin and Kevin wasn’t his first but every time they fall into bed together it’s as though he’s experiencing everything newly all over again. Kevin is remarkably reactive and Kostya is quick to catalogue what Kevin likes best – nips on the underside of his jaw, hands hard on his hips, the way Kostya kisses him after sucking him off. Kevin tells him (shyly and with much reservation) that he likes being held down and Kostya obliges because, as he’s finding out, he likes what Kevin likes.

Kevin looks at the scars on his arms that first night and doesn’t ask, says instead, “you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” and Kostya tells him everything. Kevin is wonderful, tracing the crisscrossed marks, stark white and mottled brown, with a reverent finger. “Kostya,” he says, “beautiful, perfect Kostya,” and Kostya kisses him hard because for a moment, he believes that he is.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” he says finally, breathless, and Kevin smiles, cups his face with splayed fingertips and tells him, “you’re here now, aren’t you?”

It’s breathtakingly organic, the biology of this, Kevin’s heartbeat pounding in his chest, shared air and the scent of sweat. It’s messy and human and Kostya has never wanted anything as badly as he’s wanted this. Even if things between him and Kevin don’t work out – and that’s a conversation Kostya has to have with himself often in order to stay grounded – he’s leaving an indelible mark on him, as part of him as the marrow of his bones.

He sighs Kevin’s name when he comes, when Kevin follows shortly after, when they lay together breathless and spent, _Kevin, Kevin, Kevin_ and Kevin’s answer is wordless and as sure as the beating of his heart, _Kostya, Kostya, Kostya_.

There’s nothing – there’s no, no disappointment that Kostya came first, no half-hidden sighs of exasperation or drawing in and away from him, there’s only Kevin, Kevin who reassures him when Kostya says it’s been a while, Kevin who presses a close mouthed kiss to Kostya’s chapped lips and brushes away the sweep of stray, sweat dampened hair across his forehead, Kevin who curls up flush against him with his head to his chest just to listen to Kostya being alive.

* 

The sun is blindingly bright in the sky, ferociously golden against a pale blue backdrop. It hurts to look at, and Kostya didn’t think to bring sunglasses. There’s hot sand gritty in his sandals and the air is thick with heat that presses down on him like hands on his shoulders, staggering in its insistence.

Kevin is wearing a tunic, loose and shimmery gold that compliments the bronze of his skin beautifully. He’d offered one to Kostya, a pale lavender with silvery trimmings, but Kostya had felt – and still does feel – too boxy and tall.

Kevin is a good half a foot shorter than he is, thin where Kostya is broad. He feels self-conscious about it sometimes, especially now, when Kevin is standing next to him looking gorgeous, spun out of sunlight and wisps of wind.

“You look lovely,” he’d said and Kevin had beamed brilliant and earnest and Kostya’s heart had sung. And even now, after walking a mile in the desert, Kevin still looks lovely. He looks nowhere near as sweat drenched and dust covered as Kostya feels, and it makes something uncomfortable twist in his gut, like maybe he’s not enough, like one day something in Kevin will wake and look at him and sigh, _oh_ , and that will be the end of it.

“Just up here,” Kevin says and Kostya is jolted from his reverie. In the distance stands an obelisk carved of marble, a glittering white fang in a wide and sandy maw, and there’s something – a shiver of terror, a curling feeling of awe – something that tells him that this is Important.

He trails behind Kevin almost nervously; the sun is a glint of fire and the path leading to the obelisk is hard packed dirt lined with stones, polished white and gleaming. Every step feels heavy in the heat and the light and Kostya’s bones ache.

“It’s okay,” Kevin says, reaching his hand behind him for Kostya to grab. He does so, interlacing their fingertips despite the sweat on his palms. “The Smiling God is a benevolent one. They smile upon us all equally.”

Kostya’s never been religious, raised Catholic and denounced it when he was young. He’d experimented with varying faiths as a child and found them all lacking; they had pretty words and pretty thoughts but the people themselves were never as pretty and Kostya got tired of the hollow ache in his chest that chased him from god to god.

But for Kevin, this is important – for Desert Bluffs, this is important.

So he goes.

The obelisk is about ten feet high and stands clean and smooth despite the desert surrounding it. It reminds him of the Strexcorp offices, a thought that unsettles him with its eeriness.

Kevin drops to his knees suddenly, hands clasped in front of him, eyes shut and Kostya mirrors him, uncertainty hammering in his heart.

“I take my warmth from your great warmth,” Kevin says, monotone and rhythmic. “I take my warmth from your great warmth.”

Kostya follows, but it feels empty. Eyes closed, he feels the sun burning into his eyelids, patterns unfolding in the landscapes of his mind. Kevin’s voice is steady, a thread winding through him and he loses himself to it, a counterpoint to the throbbing of his head.

In the landscapes of his mind, he sees spires of gold and sandy wastelands as far as the eye can see. His first instinct is to try to see if there’s a pattern to it, but if there is, he doesn’t notice it.

What he does notice is –

A burning sun, radiant and warm.

A looming mountain, distant and cold.

A blinking light, steady and red.  
The scent of rain, like roses blooming.  
And Kevin’s laugh, gentle and lilting.

*

"You were gone an awfully long time," Kevin murmurs and Kostya makes a noise of apology in his throat. He hadn't meant to be worrisome, doesn't mean to be now, but he feels as though he’s been wiped through with something, something that’s left him empty and exhausted. The world is awash in shades of grey, and all Kostya wants to do is to sleep for the next week.

Kevin draws the washcloth across his back in soothing circles and Kostya thinks he should feel embarrassed but can't muster up the energy to do so. The water is cool and it makes him shudder with the contrast. He feels so unbearably hot.

"You should've told me," Kevin chides, without malice. "I've had practice. It would've been safer."

"Not for you," Kostya mumbles. "S'illegal. Code 645 Section A--"

"High level employees have certain privileges," Kevin says primly, dragging the cloth across Kostya's shoulders. "Code 78. I could've gone."

"Di'nt know. Di'nt wanna risk getting you in trouble."

"Kostya," Kevin sighs. "Brave and beautiful Kostya. I'm going to move away now. I need to rewet the cloth."

Even with the warning, he feels the sudden absence as a full body shock. Without Kevin to ground him, he feels like he’s drifting, afloat in some vast and intangible thing, something cosmic and distant and _god_ what if none of this is real? What if he’s imagined this entire thing, what if he’s –

"Stop that," Kevin says from across the bathroom and Kostya shivers. "I'm here. You're here. This is real."

"Sorry,” Kostya murmurs, unaware that he’d been speaking aloud. Kevin puts a hand on his shoulder, brand-hot and Kostya groans and tips his head back.

"Shhh. You're okay. Just keep listening to my voice Kostya. You're okay."

He wipes Kostya down gently, from head to toe, lovingly and patiently. He narrates to Kostya as he does, telling him where he's going to touch and why. And when he's done, he walks with Kostya to the bedroom and wraps him in their duvet.

"Don't leave," Kostya rasps, when Kevin doesn't immediately join him.

"I'm not going to," Kevin says simply and something in the way he says it makes Kostya understand that this is like what he does, a sentence with layers and matrices, something that means so much more than a reassurance here and now.

"Love you," he slurs before his brain can catch up with his mouth, and his sudden aborted attempt at stopping himself leaves him dizzy with exertion.

"I love you too," Kevin says like it means nothing - like it means everything. His weight makes the bed dip as he settles in next to Kostya, close but not touching. "Promise me that next time you want to run tests on the Void, you'll take me?"

"Promise."

*

 _Now, dear listeners, I know that this is your_ community _radio station and not, say, Kevin’s Personal Life Station. But this day – this very day! – marks a special day in my life, and nothing would bring me greater joy than to share it with you!_

_Of course, Strexcorp has very specific regulations guiding the use of air time, helpfully laid out for all of us in Section 85-A of their Employee Handbook! And as a dedicated Strexcorp employee I am, of course, acutely aware of just how much time I can spend discussing non-newsworthy topics! Which is, by the way, approximately two minutes. Two whole minutes! I’d better start now._

_Today marks the one year anniversary of my and Kostya’s first date! One year ago today, Kostya and I had our very first dinner date! I still remember what he was wearing; a casual labcoat, a dark blue shirt, business casual pants. Very dashing._

_It was awkward, as first dates often are, but Kostya was charming and I was just happy to spend time with him at a romantic, Strexcorp owned and approved restaurant. When he drove me home he – listeners, I’m sorry, I still get a little flustered thinking about it. He_ kissed _me!_

 _It was_ perfect. 

_And now, one year later. One year later and Kostya and I are still as happy as we were on that first date, despite the ups and downs that come with every relationship._

_Sometimes, things seem… imperfect. Things seem like they might not work out, or like the odds are insurmountable. Sometimes it seems that even the Smiling God themself is against you. But over the course of this year I’ve come to realize that that just isn’t true! All things are born imperfect, and they become perfect when we work hard at them. And Kostya and I – we’ve worked_ hard _._

_Which is why, dear listeners, I want to remind you._

_Love can seem distant. Love can seem like it won’t find you, like it’s this immeasurable and intangible thing – and maybe it is. But remember: Strexcorp scientists, my Kostya included, isolated the very chemical components of love just last week! Love is out there listeners. Love is out there_.

_And with that lovely thought listeners, I must leave you. Kostya and I have dinner plans at a lovely Italian eatery._

_Until next time, Desert Bluffs. Until next time!_


End file.
